The Victoria and Albert Museum writes that “[t]his painting is a fine example of [Browne’s] art as it combines a portrait of a young girl and a genre scene, the young girl being distracted by a goldfinch while doing her homework…The bird’s cage can be construed as a metaphor for the imposed homework while the fact that it is opened alludes to the possibility of escaping such task by distraction.”

The other goldfinch, however, is content for the moment to stay in its cage.